Worldbridges Megafeed

Last Sunday's session became a general discussion about all things Mac. While the discussion was interesting it took us away from the intended focus of the session, webcasting for interns. The deviation from program was largely a result of people outside the intern community joining the Skypecast. All future Mac webcasting workshops will no longer be Skypecast. Interns are asked to enter the Academy Chat Room at the beginning of the workshop so that they can be given the Skype Id of the person facilitating the workshop and be brought into the Skype call by that person. This procedure should ensure that sessions stay on topic and do not compromise Academy information that might be considered more confidential in nature. In response to the desire for more general discussion about Macs and their application to education and communication, we are pleased to announce, at Jason Robertshaw's suggestion, MacBridges. While there is not much at the site as yet, stay tuned to 'Upcoming Events' for our first webcast (sooner than you might think!).

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Ok, I have done a bit more work on these, using the Site that Jason recommended, this is what i have come up with... not sure which icon I want to go with, the pillars or the mic. But the different levels will have a different colour laurel.

• Voice Recorder - Red
• Audio Editor - Green (proof2)
• Webcaster - Yellow (Gold)(proof1)
• Instructor - Orange

Let me know what you think!

Our Weekly Webcast Academy Meeting

- Webcastathon Rescheduled
- 'Commencement Ceremonies'
- Class of 1.3 and 2.1 (EVO special)
- Proficieny 'pillars' & certification criteria

1. Audio Engineer - record & edit telephony conversation
2. Streamer - webcast the audio from a telephony conversation
3. Show Manager - moderate the discussion, manage callers
4. Publisher - post edited audio and show notes on a website
                    1+2+3+4= Webcaster
   

- Tech Issues
Chat Transcript Below

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Hi everyone

Liz and I streamed to Sandbox A fairly successfully. We were discussing an article found online which was a presentation to the Education and Technology Committees of the New York City Council by Ellen Meir from the Center for Technology and School Change at Teachers College, Columbia University.

 We didn't get to start on time because of some technical issues. We resolved those about fifteen minutes after our start time. A few minutes into the show, the chat room let us know that I was coming through but Liz was not. I had forgotten to set the sound capture in SimpleCast to the sound card, so no Liz. We fixed that and were good until the end.

The attached file is from Audacity since the stream recording was not complete until half way through. 

Download MP3 (18.5 MB, 20:18)

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I just downloaded Audacity for the Mac. I've used it a couple times on a PC. When I lauch it for the first time, it says "Audacity First Run," and asks me to choose a language (with English being the only option). When I click OK, it just hangs, spinning the beachball and never fully launches.

I thought this might have something to do with my account settings, because I don't usually run as full admin. So I logged into the full admin account and launched Audacity and it eventually came up. So what's going on here? Is this normal? Do I have to have full permissions to use Audacity, or is it something else.

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Just found this August 2006 interview with Jeff and Dave: http://edufilter.org/?p=4). Sorry if this is old news. But I found the statistics on listenership and number of downloads insightful. I've wondered about that and thought it might be a important nugget of information to add when discussing Webcast Academy proficiency, i.e., number of listeners reached.

Thanks to Doug Symington, Paul Reid, Alice Barr, Jason Robertshaw, Lee Baber and Cheryl Oakes for their contributions over the first four sessions. It has been great to have the exchange of information and ideas between Mac users in the community. It has also been good to share in the achievement of people getting up and running with streaming. I look forward to more Mac users joining us for future workshops.

PS check out Lee's live banjo at the end of the Session 3 mp3 file!

Download Session 3 mp3 (14.1MB, 59min)
Download Session 4 mp3 (14.8MB, 1hr, 5min)

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Paul,

Good to hear from you. When I descend from the Weksh mountains, I will contact you for help.

Thanks for writing,

Dennis

I have been thinking about using Webcasting on our closed network where I work. I am guessing that I would need to set-up a Shoutcast Server,but what I use instead of Skype? Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

paul...

Might be able to generate custom badges using the Official Seal Generator. See attached.

I am reading about these Mac successes at streaming and grabbing in Wales, UK on holiday. When I return to Germany in about two weeks' time, I shall continue to fight forthe honour of PCs - and my honour in particular. So far I have met with total failure.

Dennis

Hi everyone, After today's discussion, on Proficiency Badges, and chatting with Jeff and Dave, I am pleased to present some proof of concept Webcast Proficiency Badges. There is still some work to be done on them, but these give the general idea.

You could use them on your website/blog/wiki, make crests and sew them on your jacket, tattoos (not real ones, the ones you use water on), buttons, badges...the uses are endless...

Any comments, suggestions, feedback etc, is greatly appreciated.

(This was posted using new Drupal audio module)

Webcast Academy Meeting 1.2.5
September 10

Agenda

- Proficiency 'Badges' and Certification, Intern Portfolios  
   Webcast Components - Streamer, Host, Director, Editor, Publisher, others?
- Shoutcast (self-streaming, stream info, streamripper)
- A Webcast Academy Client?
- Webcastathon Planning
- Book of Webcasting
- Live Video (webcam & desktop) Academy Video Room
      Plug in link below the video window
     Needed Software NSV (Nullsoft Streaming Video) Tools
        Shoutcast Forums - Video Section

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Thanks to Brad and Jason last night, I was able finally to get to kick the host. A virtual kick the can!
At first I planned to just listen. So I brought my USB logitech headphone/mic . This works great for just listening. However, when I went to take over the broadcast things failed.
So, I picked up my Logitech USB mic, and headphones(ipod),then with a restart was able to use Nicecast, hijack the broadcast,SKYPE and archive so you will hear a little bit about our conversation.
Moving along!
It is great to work with a small group of people when troubleshooting.
Oh, I am using Mac intel Macbook, when I first was invited to join the skype conversation, I crashed. I am using Skype 1.4.0.49, not up to the beta!

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Brad Hicks hosted Webcast Academy #4b for Macintosh users. cheryloakes and I joined Brad in the conversation. I had my first full succcess, hijacking the Skype call in Nicecast and taking over the stream. Also successfully recorded the Skype call using the ecamm Call Recorder. Thanks for all the help Brad.

Change Log (This blog is being edited till completion):
a. 10 Sept, 2006 - Modified 3.1.4 to 3.1.8 (Error in Oddcast version)
b. Added solution2

Webcasting with Oddcast:
The installation of Oddcast 3.1.8 from oddsock.org proceeded fine, however I had some issues when streaming. I was able to resolve some issues, and am working on the rest.

Issues:
1. Could not find MP3 encoder
2. Could not record and save locally
3. Oddcast seems to be streaming audio from wave-out-mix even if I tell it to stream only from mic or line-in

Solutions:
1. The MP3 encoder was not visible because I did not select LAME encoder when installing Oddcast. By default it selects the Ogg Vorbis encoders but the LAME (for MP3), and AAC encoders have to be selected manually. I had to reinstall Oddcast with LAME selected, after which it worked fine.

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Teaching in Rural and Remote Locations series This is the second in the teaching in rural and remote locations series. My guest was Paul Reid, a teacher at Paraburdoo Primary School.

About Paul from the Digital Chalkie website: Interesting things of note might be that I love computers and have done so for many years. Currently I live and teach in Paraburdoo (a small Pilbara iron-ore mining town where most people earn 4 times as much I do). I once ran an international film festival in a bomb shelter in southern Japan.

This webcast originally went to air on Saturday 26th of August 2006.

Download mp3 (27MB, 59min)

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Hello,

Today is Ganapati Visarjan in India. Thought I'd share this with all international participants on Webcast Academy.

Ganesh is the god of good fortune. During Ganesh festival the idol of Lord Ganesh is bought into many homes and worshipped for 10 days, and on the 11th day the idol is immersed in water.

This is the Kasaba Peth Ganapati Mandal in Pune, and one of the oldest (113 years old) in the country.

This is a snippet from Wikipedia that explains the symbolism of the Ganesh idol. Every element of the body of Ganesha has its own value and its own significance:

The elephant head indicates fidelity, intelligence and discriminative power;

The fact that he has a single tusk (the other being broken off) indicates Ganesha’s ability to overcome all forms of dualism;

The wide ears denote wisdom, ability to listen to people who seek help and to reflect on spiritual truths. They signify the importance of listening in order to assimilate ideas. Ears are used to gain knowledge. The large ears indicate that when God is known, all knowledge is known;

the curved trunk indicates the intellectual potentialities which manifest themselves in the faculty of discrimination between real and unreal;

on the forehead, the Trishula (weapon of Shiva, similar to Trident) is depicted, symbolising time (past, present and future) and Ganesha's mastery over it;

Ganesha’s pot belly contains infinite universes. It signifies the bounty of nature and equanimity, the ability of Ganesha to swallow the sorrows of the Universe and protect the world;

the position of his legs (one resting on the ground and one raised) indicate the importance of living and participating in the material world as well as in the spiritual world, the ability to live in the world without being of the world.

The four arms of Ganesha represent the four inner attributes of the subtle body, that is: mind (Manas), intellect (Buddhi), ego (Ahamkara), and conditioned conscience (Chitta). Lord Ganesha represents the pure consciousness - the Atman - which enables these four attributes to function in us;

• The hand waving an axe, is a symbol of the retrenchment of all desires, bearers of pain and suffering. With this axe Ganesha can both strike and repel obstacles. The axe is also to prod man to the path of righteousness and truth;
• The second hand holds a whip, symbol of the force that ties the devout person to the eternal beatitude of God. The whip conveys that worldly attachments and desires should be rid of;
• The third hand, turned towards the devotee, is in a pose of blessing, refuge and protection (abhaya);
• the fourth hand holds a lotus flower (padma), and it symbolizes the highest goal of human evolution, the sweetness of the realised inner self.

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My standard “rig” for webcasting is as follows: Hardware: iMac G4 desktop with 1Gb RAM, Logitech USB desktop Mic Software: Nicecast (for broadcasting and recording), Audacity and Garageband (editing), Skype (conference calls), iTunes (music broadcasting via Nicecast) The above rig is what I have found the most dependable to date. Even though my Mac has fairly good system specs, I find that it still tends to struggle when running Skype and Nicecast simultaneously. Using the web-based Skypecast facility definitely helps to reduce the load on system resources.

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Last week I posed some questions about the Academy through the lense of the Masters unit I'm currently taking. A couple of the community members were kind enough to respond to that post and links to their responses can be found here and here. So given that I put the questions out there in the first place it's only appropriate that I give my perspective.

• What is the common vision of members of the Academy community?

The Academy website defines the following goals for its activities:

• Increasing the number of people who are capable of producing live, interactive webcasts

• applying the open source community approach to skill development

• creating a place that formally recognizes proficiency, excellence, and innovation in these new media skills

The members of the community come together from many different countries, education systems and levels of education. So it is, in some ways, quite amazing that the people who have involved themselves manage to find a common ground. The thing that strikes me about the people that I have met through the Academy is that they are all prepared to be open to making new connections with other people. They are prepared to share their knowledge and also want to learn from others. They are prepared to go more out of their way to help their fellow community members. The community members are prepared to enter into open discussions that bring forward new things to learn and issues to be considered. My perspective is that the community members share a vision of a community where they can learn about how to apply new technologies to their own lives and the lives of their students. The community is growing into one where professional knowledge and experience is shared via the webcast shows that are developed as members proceed through the Academy training. As more people participate in, and complete the training, the community grows; so to does the audience as new webcasters introduce members of their other networks to their webcasting activities.

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